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Temporal Paradox and Time Travel delight us in science fiction, but what would a war across time really look like?

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In our current age of science, many people see supernatural forces as illusions rooted in wishful thinking. However, love remains a profound exception to humanity’s trend toward rationality.

People are used to seeing romantic love presented as a force cosmically bound to one’s destiny, as it is on the reality show “The Bachelor.” It’s an idea that is at the same time laughable and uncannily relatable for anyone who has been in love and felt their pairing compellingly “meant to be.” Our research suggests that these magical notions of fated love and unique soulmates are very common and deeply felt.

As psychology researchers curious about why human beings think, feel, and behave in the ways they do, we ask a fundamental question: Why does love feel magical? We hope that answering this question might shed some light on the quandaries that have long plagued people in love. Should you blindly trust your heart to lead you to happiness, despite the chaos that’s as much a part of love as bliss is? Or should you instead skeptically regard the tendency to magical thinking about love, striving for rationality in the search for a fulfilling relationship?

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According to research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, the enzyme DOT1L, a stem cell self-renewal factor, is necessary for mice to continue producing sperm throughout adulthood.

Men may continue to generate sperm throughout their adult life, in contrast to women who are born with all the eggs they will ever have. To do so, they must constantly renew the spermatogonial stem cells that give birth to sperm.

According to research by Jeremy Wang of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues, this stem cell renewal is dependent on a recently identified stem cell self-renewal factor known as DOT1L. The scientists demonstrated that animals lacking DOT1L are unable to retain spermatogonial stem cells, which affects their ability to constantly make sperm.

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Due to a rare genetic mutation, Aliria Rosa Piedrahita de Villegas should have had Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.

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Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist and science journalist. His work can be found in publications including The Atlantic, the New York Times, Scientific American, and BBC Future. He has also authored academic papers for prestigious peer-reviewed journals, such as Human Brain Mapping and Cognition & Emotion.

Below, Bobby shares 5 key insights from his new book, Listen to the audio version—read by Bobby himself—in the Next Big Idea App.

If you’re listening to this then congratulations, you’re lucky enough to be alive during the most exciting time in history. We are on the verge of a paradigm shift of unparalleled magnitude. Such a shift occurs when new science forces us to adopt a different overall framework and perspective.

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Cutting intricate patterns as small as several billionths of a meter deep and wide, the focused ion beam (FIB) is an essential tool for deconstructing and imaging tiny industrial parts to ensure they were fabricated correctly. When a beam of ions, typically of the heavy metal gallium, bombards the material to be machined, the ions eject atoms from the surface—a process known as milling—to sculpt the workpiece.

Beyond its traditional uses in the semiconductor industry, the FIB has also become a critical tool for fabricating prototypes of complex three-dimensional devices, ranging from lenses that focus light to conduits that channel fluid. Researchers also use the FIB to dissect biological and material samples to image their internal structure.

However, the FIB process has been limited by a trade-off between high speed and fine resolution. On the one hand, increasing the ion current allows a FIB to cut into the workpiece deeper and faster. On the other hand, the increased current carries a larger number of positively charged ions, which electrically repel each other and defocus the beam. A larger, diffuse beam, which can be about 100 nanometers in diameter or 10 times wider than a typical narrow beam, not only limits the ability to fabricate fine patterns but can also damage the workpiece at the perimeter of the milled region. As a result, the FIB has not been the process of choice for those trying to machine many tiny parts in a hurry.

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From my understanding, inertia is typically taken as an axiom rather than something that can be explained by some deeper phenomenon. However, it’s also my understanding that quantum mechanics must reduce to classical, Newtonian mechanics in the macroscopic limit.

By inertia, I mean the resistance to changes in velocity — the fact of more massive objects (or paticles, let’s say) accelerating more slowly given the same force.

What is the quantum mechanical mechanism that, in its limit, leads to Newtonian inertia? Is there some concept of axiomatic inertia that applies to the quantum mechanical equations and explains Newtonian inertia, even if it remains a fundamental assumption of quantum theory?

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